Enterprise mobility is booming; organizations must connect with employees, customers, and partners in new ways and across new devices and applications. But many organizations don’t know how to move to this new mobile world, and they can’t afford costly mistakes like a failed investment, which could damage their reputation. These technologists need help with their enterprise mobility strategy, and they’re turning to mobility services providers to design, develop, and support their mobile applications.

The number of mobile devices now outpaces humans on this planet, as it is estimated that there were 7.3 billion devices in the world in 2012 (compared with just under 7 billion people, according to the World Bank).

Mobility is driving significant changes in the way organizations source technology and technology services. Seventy-one percent of IT services executives say that increased employee use of apps on tablets and smartphones also increases services spend (in business and in IT), creates more software-as-a-service (SaaS) deployment on mobile devices, and drives them to hire more third-party services firms across multiple areas, including specialized development and security.

Using mobile-based Customer Relationship Management (CRM), warranty management, service and spare parts procurement strategies, small and mid-sized organizations can level the playing field with the big boys. What smaller competitors lack in breadth they can make up for in speed and responsiveness.

Gartner’s IT Market Clock for Enterprise Mobility, 2012 captures how mobility is changing the nature of competition.

OEM Market ShareFor the three-month average period ending in May, 234 million Americans age 13 and older used mobile devices. Device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 25.7 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers (up 0.1 percentage points), followed by LG with 19.1 percent share. Apple continued to grow its share in the OEM market, ranking third with 15.0 percent (up 1.5 percentage points), followed by Motorola with 12.0 percent and HTC with 6.1 percent.

Smartphone Platform Market ShareNearly 110 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in May, up 5 percent versus February. Google Android ranked as the top smartphone platform with 50.9 percent market share (up 0.8 percentage points). Five years after the release of the first iPhone, Apple’s share of the smartphone market reached 31.9 percent in May (up 1.7 percentage points). RIM ranked third with 11.4 percent share, followed by Microsoft (4.0 percent) and Symbian (1.1 percent).

Mobile Content UsageIn May, 74.8 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers used text messaging on their mobile device. Downloaded applications were used by 51.1 percent of subscribers (up 1.6 percentage points), while browsers were used by 49.8 percent (up 0.6 percentage points). Accessing of social networking sites or blogs increased 0.6 percentage points to 36.7 percent of mobile subscribers. Game-playing was done by 33.5 percent of the mobile audience (up 1.3 percentage points), while 27.0 percent listened to music on their phones (up 2.2 percentage points).